This Is Home This Christmas
by Anime Girl23
Summary: Their first Christmas together was probably the least romantic thing it ever could have been, but it was still the happiest Emma could remember being. [pre-OUAT] Neal/Emma. Swanfire. Swan Thief.


We'll call it a Christmas miracle that of all the Swanfire fics I've started, this is the first one I've ever finished. Assuming I ever get those other ones finished, just assume that this is the one time you'll ever get fluff out of me.

Disclaimer: If Once Upon A Time belonged to me, I'd still be watching it. It doesn't and I'm not, so...

This Is Home This Christmas  
>One-shot<p>

It was snowing and Emma had lost her gloves weeks ago. Looking back, she was sure someone had pickpocketed the pickpocket and stolen them right out of her jacket. She'd be annoyed if she thought that it was anyone other than Neal. She had seen him with gloves she didn't recognize for all of a day before they disappeared. This time, she was sure that he had lost them. Since winter had hit Portland—and a lot heavier than normal that year, too—she had noticed that the two of them were sneaking more gloves out of stores than anything.

For a second, she thought about getting Neal one of those scarves that had pockets on either end. Or clips for his gloves. She tossed both ideas out before they had time to fully form in her mind. As juvenile as Neal could be sometimes with his jokes and his smiles that were entirely too boyish for someone his age, clips were a bit _too_ childish for him.

The scarf, honestly, was simply too dangerous. If he didn't catch it on something and strangle himself, _she_ would be the one to strangle him. She'd considered it a couple times and told him as much.

_"Neal, I swear. I don't care if you have a thing about winter. If I wake up to the window open one more time..."_

He never took her seriously.

She wondered if drowning him in one of his precious snow banks was actually possible.

Still, she indulged him as much as she could, slipping a couple candy canes into her pocket as she drifted through a convenience store. She could hear him off in the distance of the tiny shop, chatting with the cashier about nothing. It was just a distraction to bide her some time and she took it, slipping a couple containers of sandwiches into her bag. On a whim, she grabbed another two pairs of gloves that she knew would be long gone before the new year came around.

She came around with a smile on her face and kissed Neal's cheek as she put a bottle of lemonade and a candy bar on the counter. "Talking about me?" she asked, innocent as they played out a story they had used a thousand times already.

"Maybe." He caught her lips in a proper kiss this time and nodded at the cashier who was ringing them up. "I was telling him about the road trip. Remember the world's biggest yarn ball?"

"I wish I didn't." She shook her head, smiling fondly as he put an arm across her shoulders. "I couldn't find that drink you wanted. I told you. They only have it back east."

Neal's bottom lip poked out in a pout and he heaved a heavy sigh as he handed the cashier the money. It only amounted to a few dollars, but with the ice coating the ground, this play was a lot safer than making a break for it. They'd only end up breaking a bone instead.

She took the bag off the counter, smiling at the man as he wished them a merry Christmas. "You too."

The little alarm went off as they tried to cross through the doors and they feigned surprise as the cashier waved them on. "That thing has been on the fritz for weeks. Go ahead."

They made it out to the yellow bug with a laugh, both of them rubbing cold hands together as they waited for the engine to warm. The ride back to the motel they had snuck their way into would have been shorter in the summer, but the snow and ice made the trip much longer. Old tires slid on slick roads and she watched Neal's brows furrow in concentration as he tried to control the car.

He muttered something about wagons that she didn't quite hear or understand, but she let it go. He did that sometimes, she noticed. Muttered about something she didn't catch or that didn't make much sense. The more she heard him mutter about wagons, horses, and dirt roads, though, the more she wondered if he had maybe been raised Amish. She didn't know much of anything about that stuff, but she knew enough to know that Amish and modern society didn't mix too well. And some stupid show she had watched on TV once told her that people that left didn't get to go back. Their families ditched them. Neal was as alone as she was.

It was that or Neal was some kind of weird time traveler, but that was a little too sci-fi for her. It would help if he talked about his past a bit more, but considering she wasn't one to share either, she couldn't ask that much of him. The both of them were a little too private and a little too damaged for their own goods.

Somehow, they made it back to the motel in one piece and without any new dents to the car that she had come to love. They made it inside before anyone caught them and Emma laughed when they flipped on the light.

"They got extra trashy while we were gone, didn't they?" she asked, fingering the broken limb of the tree someone had parked on the dresser. It was balanced in a pot with a Styrofoam inside. One bulb hung from it and as she looked a little closer, she saw the crack running down the side. "This thing is more pathetic than Charlie Brown's."

Neal's cheeks went pink. "I put that in here."

Her eyes went wide and she felt something that was probably guilt bubble in her stomach. "You did?"

He shrugged a shoulder, suddenly self-conscious. She _definitely_ felt guilty now. "Thought it'd be nice. I've never had a Christmas tree before."

"Me neither," she admitted, her voice a little softer as she glanced back at him. She hadn't. Not really. A couple foster homes had put them up, but none of those places had been her home. She had always felt like the holiday intruder. And knowing Neal had never had a proper one either—or one at all—made something in her chest tighten. He was just as screwed up as she was. "I like it."

He snorted. "You _just_ said Charlie Brown's was better. I don't even know who Charlie Brown is."

Yeah. Definitely Amish, she thought. "He's cool, alright? And he's a cartoon character. Remind me to show you a comic sometime. Or we can find the Christmas movie on TV. It's gotta be on a channel somewhere."

He hummed in response and pulled his jacket off.

"Seriously, though. Of all things for you to not know about, you don't know Charlie Brown? I figured that was universal."

Neal's nose scrunched up as he pulled a face and turned away from her. "I…missed a lot growing up. Didn't really have time for that kind of stuff." He shrugged a shoulder, his back still to her. "Different world, you know?"

The _yeah_ came out easily enough, but she'd learn years later that she hadn't known a damn thing.

She walked up behind him, her nose pressed against the back of his shoulder as she wrapped her arms around his middle. "Sorry," she mumbled, mostly because she wasn't sure what else to say. She always seemed to forget just how little about Neal's past she actually knew. Not that he knew much of hers.

He shrugged again and it made the fabric of his shirt scratch her nose. She pulled away at the same time he turned to face her and she tilted her head up to kiss him. Soft. Apologetic. Being with him was still something she was figuring out. For all the months they had been running around together, she didn't think either one of them knew how a normal relationship was actually supposed to work. They were figuring it out as they went along.

"It's alright," he told her. "Pop culture hasn't really been high on my list of things to figure out." He chuckled and shook his head. "I'm still trying to figure out how stars are at war, so…"

She bit her lip to force back that laugh that bubbled up in her throat. "We're going to Blockbuster after Christmas, okay? Crash course."

"Okay." He wrapped his arms around her tighter and caught her in another kiss, this one more passionate. It seemed to say the three words that both of them were too cowardly to say and she sighed into it, happy. He made her happy.

He moved away from her when the kiss broke, one finger held up to still her before she could begin to follow him. "Hold on. There's something else." He grabbed the patched up duffle he carried with him, digging through a pile of clothes that was even smaller than her sad excuse for a wardrobe. "Found it."

"Found what? One of the two-hundred gloves you've lost?"

"No. Those are gone forever," he said easily as he pulled something from his bag. "Here."

He handed her a tiny present, wrapped up in newspaper rather than any of the shimmering stuff that they saw in the stores. He had drawn a Christmas tree on it in black Sharpie that, honestly, looked more sad than the one sitting on the dresser. Still, he was smiling at her and she couldn't help but return it, because this one reached his eyes and those smiles always made her stomach do a flip.

"Where did you steal this from?" she asked.

"Hey!" He laughed. "I can buy things occasionally!"

She rolled her eyes at him, but there was this fond smile on her face as she tore open the gift. A second later, she was laughing along with him and popped open the little plastic container. "Yeah. If it costs a _quarter_."

"Fifty cents!"

"On a…" She trailed off, squinting at the strange little shape on the fake gold necklace. "Is that supposed to be a dinosaur?"

"I think?" He shrugged. "I was _trying_ to get the heart, but I ran out of quarters."

"Is it gonna turn my neck green?"

"Probably."

She let him put it on her anyway, humming as he kissed at a spot a little higher on her neck.

"Merry Christmas," he murmured into her skin.

She leaned back into his chest, tilting her head back onto his shoulder as his arms came around her waist. "Merry Christmas."

The End


End file.
